Hi Everyone,

I had been using this site for a morale boost during my studies....so thank you very much to all those who took the time to contribute their experience. I will keep this to the point as much as possible.....

I had registered nearly a year ago and studied occassionally over that period of time. But everytime I picked up the material the second time, it felt like I was starting fresh.....SO dont overstudy plizzzz....

1) STUDY TIME:  I truly believe 1 month is more than enough provided you study continuously or atleast browse through the material on days you are tired from work;

2) MATERIALS: I had collected all the best materials, but used only a few. ( I remembered reading several LLs here pointing that out as well, but ...oh well). I actually read the following three books:

            (A) Rita Mulcahy Ed 7 - Read it once over xmas holidays, but didnt understand, well aleast could not recall much, but lost all my vacation on it. If I did this again, (this was also advised in LL here, but ....) just browse through it the first time and read it throughly the second time.....

           (B) Head First: So easy to go through it. I loved it, BUT BUT not enough on its own..not enough close. The exercises/games are good. It helps you retain material. I relied on Head First for PERT, Earned Value, and EVM calculation. I read this book once throughly, and then second time went through some chapters..

          (C) Kim Heldman - I got hold of this book very late (last week) ....so could only finish the planning section, so listened to the summaried audio which comes with the book. The awesome aspect about this book is that it is arranged by process groups as opposed to the more common knowledge areas... Planning was most intimidating for me .... but i did end up getting "Proficient" on this...

My recommendation: Kim Heldman + Head First is ideal but if you dont have time then Kim Heldman alone will do fine. Nothing against Rita M but ....enough said.

3) TEST BANKS: I also collected quite a few question banks ...two huge binders worth and did not solve even a single one.

I only had time to solve two full 200Q tests which I did the day before....so a total of 400Q + end of section tests from Kim and Head First. One test was from a free website (techfaq360.com) and Rita M's FASTrack.

Highly recommend FASTrack, I am so glad I took the full mock test and then some more questions by process group. Very Very close to the actual test. Its expensive, but still cheaper than the prep course (i didnt take one). If you have time, Kim Heldman CD (comes with the book) has flashcards, section questions and two mocks. I liked the section end qs that I was able to study so I am guessing the mock tests would be of similar quality. 

4)PMBOK: Used it for reference only. Read the glossary and printed out few pages for its ITTOs. Thats it.

5) ITTO: I wrote the mnemonics, so I knew the first letter of all i/o, o/p, and t/t, but didnt have time to associate around 40% letters with the words. I am conflicted on my advice here, because I got three ITTO questions and answered all of them by matching the letters with answer choices. E.g. I knew that that particular process only had three o/ps starting with certain alphabets....BUT I do agree with some LLs written here that its probably not worth it....

6) ACTUAL EXAM:

I got questions mainly on these topics ( suprisely NOT a single professional& social  responsibility question) 

a) Conflict Management (know the 4 techniques for different scenarios) ; b) Change Management; c) CV/SV - more Qs than I expected, but not complicated ones.  d) No ES-EF-LS-LF type network problems..(Head first examples more than enough) e)Risk response Strategies f) Contract types-know the risks associated with each. g) Quality Assurance and Control Qs - the difference between them, and know the different charts e.g. control charts (4Qs), scatter diagram (2Qs) h) Know the difference between direct/indirect/fixed/variable costs (2-3Qs) i) Cost of Quality........

Question length: Same as FasTrack....I didnt find them long at all. Not longer than 5 lines. Actually my exam was easier than FasTrack...I didnt feel that PMI was trying to trick the test taker at all meaning the choices could be eliminated very easily. 

7) A MUST MUST WITHOUT ANY EXCEPTION: 

Rajesh Nair's notes. I could not have passed without them period. I had them laminated and carried them everywhere in the last 2 weeks. He literally summarised the PMBOK. Many many thanks Rajesh.

All the best to all PMP aspirants...Take it easy. You can beat the exam easily if you are a thinker :)

Cheers

V R